da bwin： On Sunday 13 May 2012, the final day of the upcoming Premier League season, you expect to see a battle over the final relegation places and even for the title itself but it is very hard to envisage that deciding the makeup of the top six will go to go the wire. Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City are very likely to form it and the only question to ask is what order they will be in?
da stake casino： Sir Alex Ferguson recently said: “We used to talk about a top four, with ourselves, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool-you can’t say that anymore. Manchester City have definitely come into the frame. They have a buying power better than the rest of us. Maybe having the run in the European Cup just stretched Tottenham too much last season and they ended up being out of the top four. But you look at those and say any of them could win the league.” If Sir Alex thinks anyone of them could win the league, what hope is there of another team breaking through this season?
This shows how much has changed in such a short space of time as just a few years ago Aston Villa and Everton were regularly in the top six, keeping either Liverpool or Manchester City out. However in the last few seasons something has become different and that is the finances of the big sides.
The financial gulf between the current top six clubs and the clubs that are likely to challenge is now substantial. Stats from May 2010 show that five of the six teams had a wage bill over £100m in 2010 and two of clubs had a turnover of over £200m. While in comparison, Fulham had a wage bill of just under £50m while Everton were only slightly ahead with £54m. This shows what a a huge challenge it will be for any team to break into this monopoly which is only going to increase with the introduction into the Premier League of the UEFA’s financial fair play rules.
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Spending this summer has already been considerable for nearly all of the current top-six. They know it is the last chance to strengthen before these financial fair play rules, which require clubs to break even in order to qualify for European competitions, kick in next season. Man City are likely to sign more big names after the captures of Gael Clichy and Stefan Savic, Arsenal may have only brought Gervinho so far but Wenger looks certain to strengthen his defence before August and Champions League quarter-finalist’s Spurs have added Brad Friedel and Cristian Ceballos so far this summer. Liverpool, who last failed to reach the top six in the 2009/10 season, have already signed Charlie Adam, Jordan Henderson and Stuart Downing. If the improvement under Dalglish continues, they could easily be challenging for the top-four yet alone top-six.
It is a different story for the clubs that are threatening to make a breakthrough. Aston Villa have become a selling club due to the financial restraints placed on them and McLeish now has the task of rebuilding a side that has been already picked apart by the top-six teams with both Young and Downing moving on to Manchester United and Liverpool respectively.
It must be very frustrating to be a fan at Goodison Park as the repeated lack of spending by the board, results in Everton, who missed 6th place by four points to Liverpool last season, being unable to compete with the big teams despite Moyes best efforts. They used to be situated in the top six every season but now with mass influx of money at Man City, Redknapp’s influence at Spurs and the major revolution taking place at Anfield under Dalglish, it seems unlikely that they will make waves this year especially after another summer of inactivity.
Teams like Sunderland, Villa and Everton now have to sell their best players in order to progress as a Premier League club as they cannot compete with the sort of money the top-four achieves for appearing in the Champions League and with Tottenham joining the party in recent years, this task will be even harder during the new Premier League season.
There has been much talk about the Premier League levelling out over the last few years especially after two of the promoted clubs survived last season. However at the top of the league, the opposite seems to be present as there has been a changing of the tide with the top six receiving even more money, leaving the chasing pack further behind.
Their increased spending and high wage bills suggests the only way to stand a chance is to match this expenditure and until another team gets the sort of investment Manchester City have had, I cannot see any of top six being dislodged for a long time to come.
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